January 8, 2006

Kabbalists claim curse felled Sharon

Far-right activists took credit Thursday for the severe deterioration in Ariel Sharon’s health, claiming that a pulsa denura - Aramaic for “lashes of fire” - death curse they instigated against the prime minister in July was the real catalyst behind his current state of health.

“I take full responsibility for what happened,” far-right activist Baruch Ben-Yosef, one of the participants at the July pulsa denura, told The Jerusalem Post. “Our pulsa denura kicked in. Nothing could kill Sharon and he said his ancestors lived until they over 100 years old but we got him with the pulsa denura.”

On Wednesday night, Ben-Yosef and additional far-right activists gathered in the Samaria settlement of Kfar Tapuah to honor Binyamin Kahane - son of Meir Kahane - and his wife Talya who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists exactly five years ago. Upon hearing the news of Sharon’s stroke, Ben-Yosef said, the group broke out in song and dance and celebrated the prime minister’s fall throughout the night.

On Thursday, the activists said it was not a coincidence that Sharon fell gravely ill the same day as Kahane’s murder. “There is a judge in this world,” Ben-Gvir said. “[Prime minister] Yitzhak Rabin was killed on the fifth anniversary of Meir Kahane’s murder and Sharon fell ill on the anniversary of Binyamin Kahane’s murder.”

… Yosef Dayan - another participant in the pulsa denura ceremony - said that Thursday was a “great day” for the State of Israel since Sharon, whom he called an “evil man,” was incapacitated and could no longer return to power. Dayan said that while he could not say for certain that the death curse caused the stroke, he was sure that Sharon’s crime in evacuating the Gaza Strip settlements contributed to the deterioration in his health.

The curse, for what it’s worth, isn’t the ancient ritual the Kabbalists claim: it was conjured up in the mid-20th century.